Which one should I buy?

[pumpkin]

I have a Fender Champion 600... great little amp but the speaker sucks. I was thinking I'd just by an Extension cabinet to plug it into. It has 4 Ohm output.

Here are my choices. as this is what my local shop carries.

http://www.waltons.ie/Product/View.aspx?id=11085&cid=36

This has a "16-ohm Eminence Lady Luck speaker rated for 70 Watts RMS" will this be compatible?

or this

http://www.waltons.ie/Product/View.aspx?id=10773&cid=36

I looked it up elsewhere online and saw it had a 4 Ohm input, being as the amp is 4 ohms is this more compatible?

[Mike]

You definitely do not want the 16 ohm speaker. Your amp should only be connected to a 4 ohm load, i.e.:

1. A single 4 ohm speaker
2. 2 x 8 ohm speakers in parallel
3. 4 x 16 ohm speakers in parallel

An impedance mismatch is never a good idea, but older amps such as the original Fenders could be safely mismatches from their native 4 ohms often up to 8 ohm or more, but this was due to the overengineered solid high quality Output Transformers, your cheap new Champion has no such transformer, and should only be connected to a 4 ohm load of the type I have detailed about.

[pumpkin]

So if I plugged it into the 16 Ohm input on this I'd be fine?

[Mike]

Did you read my post?

No, you will not be fine. Your amp has a 4 ohm output and should only be connected to a 4 ohm load. If you were to use that cabinet, you should set it to Mono and use the 4 ohm socket.

[pumpkin]

Did you read my post?

No, you will not be fine. Your amp has a 4 ohm output and should only be connected to a 4 ohm load. If you were to use that cabinet, you should set it to Mono and use the 4 ohm socket.

That cabinet has 4 12" speakers though... does that matter? You said

"4 x 16 ohm speakers in parallel"

Assuming it's "wired in parallel".

...or is that each speaker is 4 Ohms and all together they're 16 Ohms?

[Mike]

It has 4 x 16 ohm speakers and a variable wiring scheme depending on the jack you use and the mode you set the switch to.

Set the switch to Stereo and it becomes effectively two Cabs. 8 ohms each side.

Set the switch to Mono and you have two choices;

1. 16 ohms (which is the speakers wired as parallel-series - i.e. those two 8 ohm stereo "sides" connected in series to create 16 ohms) - you do not want this.
2. 4 ohms (which is the speakers wired as parallel-parallel - i.e. those two 8 ohm stereo "sides" connected in parallel to create 4 ohms) - you want this.

[pumpkin]

Okay I understand now, thanks.

[lank81]

First off, what's the purpose of this amp? Bedroom Amp, Recording, etc? If you aren't going to gig with it I'd just replace the speaker with a Weber.

http://taweber.powweb.com/weber/

Simple Fix - 30-45$ and it'll be A LOT better than what comes stock in the Champion.

[pumpkin]

First off, what's the purpose of this amp? Bedroom Amp, Recording, etc? If you aren't going to gig with it I'd just replace the speaker with a Weber.

http://taweber.powweb.com/weber/

Simple Fix - 30-45$ and it'll be A LOT better than what comes stock in the Champion.

Thanks for the advice... but sadly it isn't that simple.

First off, I'm in Ireland. Ordering stuff over the net from America is a huge pain in the hole. I have to wait forever and then I get fucked hard by customs. Ordering inside the European Union isn't much better.

I ordered a pair of Doc Martens "For Life" shoes. I went to order from the U.K. site but they wouldn't ship to Ireland. So I had to get them fromt he U.S. site and use their re-mailer. Long story short after a huge comedy of errors I got the shoes a month and half later. All the bullshit really tainted the whole experience. When I got the shoes it wasn't "Oh Boy!" it was "fucking finally."

I bought a Schott NYC coat from the U.S. last October. The coat cost €224 with shipping and the customs duty was nearly €90... and it took only 3 weeks.

Buying in Ireland it is no better, we pay about 30% more for the same goods as U.K. (this after figuring in the exchange rate).

Our music shops are over priced and carry mostly crap. If I walked into a shop and was looking to buy guitar speakers they would show me a cabinet. They wouldn't sell a speaker on it's own. You can get pickups and hardware but you've usually no choice. One kind of single coil, one kind of humbucker... and god forbid you want to buy anything other than a Boss pedal for fucks sake.

I'd have to go 45 minutes out of town to even look at Electro-Harmonix pedal, they wouldn't even let me try it out as that would "ruin the packaging". So to hear it I'd have to buy it and I could only return it if had a factory defect. Not liking the sound isn't enough.

So my choices are pretty limited.

The speaker on the Fender Champion 600 can't handle high output pickups. So I need to use another speaker(s). Unless I want to spend €400 plus the Epiphone Triggerman appears to be my only choice.

[Mike]

Rubbish.

thomann.de

They deliver to Ireland and have loads of cabs for cheap. Check out their Harley Benton stuff.

[pumpkin]

Rubbish.

thomann.de

They deliver to Ireland and have loads of cabs for cheap. Check out their Harley Benton stuff.

Let me tell you about the last time I dealt with thomann.de

I went to the website and clicked to buy a '59 Bassman. Put in my visa debit card details and they were accepted. I got an email from them saying something like "we'll be in touch with you blah blah blah and you'll get an email when we've processed you order." Two days later I hadn't gotten any email so I rang them up. They informed me the '59 Bassman amps were out of stock even thought the webpage still had them marked as "in stock". When I clicked to buy the amp online they put a reserve of €1299 on my Visa debit card. This meant they had not taken the money but I couldn't use it either, it took 3 weeks to get that reserve removed. It was a nightmare.

I'll never give them my credit card details again.

[Mike]

That doesn't sound great - in my experience they have been nothing but exemplary.

[Haze]

Debit card holds can take as much as 30 days to release fromthe account, credit card holds can be released in a few days. That's somewhat of a common knowledge and shouldn't be blamed on the company.

[pumpkin]

That doesn't sound great - in my experience they have been nothing but exemplary.

Yeah, I have friends who used them and they had no complaints either. When the item is actually in stock, and there hasn't been in any hiccups, it works great I'd suspect but my impression is the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing over there. The departments are too segmented.

If I do order online, something always gets messed up. In the past when I have ordered inside Europe from a website the package might have "made in China" on it. Then, even though it was bought in Europe and shipped from Europe, some prick of a customs agent wants to charge me an insane duty.

[izodiak]

I had a similar experience with thomann.de, but then I just wired them the money to their bank account and from that
moment on, the shipping and all was quite quick, quite slick.

The sales lady was very helpful and everything was nice.
(my Epiphone Casino was double wrapped and the original box was set in one more box with moar bubble wrap, so they
do their job quite good)

[pumpkin]

Debit card holds can take as much as 30 days to release fromthe account, credit card holds can be released in a few days. That's somewhat of a common knowledge and shouldn't be blamed on the company.

Had thomann.de shown the amp was out of stock, I wouldn't have attmepted to purchase it. They still show it in stock and it isn't. http://www.thomann.de/ie/fender_59_bass ... ncombo.htm

[pumpkin]

After I saw lorez's post here: http://www.shortscale.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=31471 I decided to see if I could find one of these Laney VC15-110 Old English White amps for myself.

Website in Ireland says €429 for regular black one.

http://www.xmusic.ie/product.php?produc ... t=0&page=1

U.K. website says €334.65 for the fancy white one.

http://www.dv247.com/guitars/laney-vc15 ... ite--66966

I fucking hate rip off Ireland.